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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23333155">What Follows the Rain</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/chantipede/pseuds/chantipede'>chantipede</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A.C.E (Beat Interactive Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Character Development, Childhood Friends, Crushes, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Light Angst, M/M, One Shot, i pull ur ship far apart to fill ur social-distancing needs, little adventures, tw - losing in mario kart</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 06:28:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,552</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23333155</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/chantipede/pseuds/chantipede</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Why?”</p><p>Byeongkwan laughs—the gesture, delicate again—before he speaks. “Less confident.”</p><p>Yuchan wraps his hands around Byeongkwan’s neck, shaking him with false threat. “Says you!”</p><p>Byeongkwan laughs so easily, Yuchan wonders where he developed such a fluency, especially with an uneased pressure around his throat. There’s a catch of self doubt that it wasn’t from himself.</p><p>“Chan!” he coughs out, laughter finally dying down as he frees himself from Yuchan’s grip. It’s a really nice look on him, and Yuchan feels the knight’s edges soften out as he loses sanity in the creases of Byeongkwan’s cheeky smile.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kang Yuchan | Chan/Kim Byeongkwan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>What Follows the Rain</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>sorry that byeongchan was stronger in predebut and cactus era and no one wants to write them, but Maybe y'all should listen to their OSTs and take it back to The Beginning (maknae line leaving jyp, bk's mom adopting chan in seoul, gaming endlessly at bk's house, chan's fave member being bk, etc etc) but i'm just here to write whatever about whoever :)</p><p>&gt;byeongchan attempt take 2.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There’s a comforting breeze that wanders down the side of the creek, urging the autumn leaves along and two boys with it. One, following the ease of the adventure, and the other, the former’s company.</p><p>“Where are you taking us?” Yuchan asks, not peeling his attention from the pathway, veiled almost entirely in crisp foliage that it is more loud than visible, but not taking his senses off his friend either, like a third eye always open.</p><p>Byeongkwan answers with less urgence to his words, “My bus stop is this way.”</p><p>Yuchan questions why he would leave so early in the day.</p><p>“My mom said it would rain,” Byeongkwan states with a glance back.</p><p>Rain was seldom a problem in their childhood together on the island, and the current overcast tells no such future. There are less clouds in the sky than seconds it takes for Yuchan’s beggar eyes to pop out.</p><p>Though Byeongkwan faces away, Yuchan hears a smile in his words, “False forecast or not, a change of setting is always nice.”</p><p>Though Yuchan wouldn’t mind giving up his tangerine scenery, the biodiversity is not quite what he pursues.</p><p>He looks upon Byeongkwan’s scarf, light folds dancing behind in a pink colour that Yuchan would never have thought he’d wear.</p><p>“Change is nice,” he agrees.</p><p>They step onto a bridge that leads them past the creek off the Kangs' property. It’s suspended by seemingly-makeshift ropes, or so Yuchan’s brain reasons as it wobbles beneath his feet.</p><p>“Kang, you’re gonna knock us <em> both </em> off this bridge if you keep shaking it like that!”</p><p>“It’s not on purpose!” He flails in unrestrained panic. “I swear! Just… Here, you cross first, I’ll get off.”</p><p>But Byeongkwan watches Yuchan with a look that he can only catch after ripping his eyes from the water below them, and Yuchan’s not sure he would’ve made it back in one piece to begin with.</p><p>He grabs the rope handles for dear life, parallel to Byeongkwan who is now purposely shaking them.</p><p>“H-Hyung...” he stammers. “HYUNG.”</p><p>Byeongkwan bursts into laughter as Yuchan starts to shake the bridge even harder, a rare sound that Yuchan would appreciate if their decreased stability were still caused by the other’s hysteria and not his own. The laughing fit dies down and a hand grabs his arm.</p><p>“Hyung, please!” he flinches, and Byeongkwan shushes him.</p><p>“Chan, you’re fine! You’re gonna break your fingers like that.” He urges Yuchan forward. “Here, hold onto me.”</p><p>Yuchan’s fingers latch Byeongkwan’s hand no harder than it held the rope as he lets his other hand ease its grip. Byeongkwan guides them along the bridge and it seems to lessen in size and height, the threshold, a step as simple as each one prior with a hand secure in Yuchan’s. Byeongkwan gives Yuchan a soft look that curves his eyes and pinches his lips, genuine pride evident in the satisfaction, and Yuchan notes the second longer it takes before he’d usually look away.</p><p>Unlike the newfound clarity in his mind, the sky breaks out into a cry, evident at first by the patter of leaves.</p><p>Byeongkwan’s eyebrows disappear under his bangs and he hurriedly pulls up his bag. Yuchan holds back a frown as he takes an umbrella from it and prepares to bolt.</p><p>“Actually,” Byeongkwan says, “my bus stop is close, and there’s enough trees ahead.” He shoves it into Yuchan’s arms and waves as he greatens their distance. “See you at school, Kang!”</p><p>Yuchan drops his returning wave long after his friend disappears into the brush, heart lifted as he raises Byeongkwan’s pink umbrella over his head.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Yuchan fills Byeongkwan’s footsteps with his own as they tread the virgin snow in silence, leaving it with the presence of a single person. The action is half conscious, and only to keep the snow out of Yuchan’s boots, Byeongkwan paying no mind to what gets in his own. The moon illuminates the earth in visibility, and she absorbs all sound in return to bid her animals good rest. The snow is to the moon what the moon is to the sun: an echoed reflection to bear light from its own face and hide what’s behind, as if such surfaces were never real.</p><p>Byeongkwan remains quiet in its centre, walking thoughtfully and unprompted by the shadow that follows him until he stops hearing it. He turns back to find the boy astray from their aimless path and fallen, angel in the snow.</p><p>He walks into Yuchan’s peripheral, limited by a big fluffy hood, and pulls down his signature pink scarf to speak. “Are you tired?”</p><p>Yuchan is heaving mist into the air as a quiet complaint. “It’s almost midnight. Where were we even going?”</p><p>Byeongkwan smiles an answer when he doesn’t have one. “I’m not tired.”</p><p>“You haven’t been sleeping. Not in the nighttime at least.”</p><p>Byeongkwan admires the observation. “There’s too much to think about at night.”</p><p>“Like what?”</p><p>Yuchan can almost hear him blink in the winter’s silence, but Byeongkwan reaches out a hand. “C’mon, Kang. Get up.”</p><p>“But the snow is soft.”</p><p>“It’s all over your pants.”</p><p>“<em>Your </em> boots must be full of it.”</p><p>Byeongkwan grabs Yuchan’s arm and yanks him up, ready for another earful of complaints.</p><p>“My hands are col-”</p><p>“Then wear my gloves.” Byeongkwan transfers each glove onto Yuchan’s hands as if he can’t do it himself and includes his own hands around them to exaggerate further warmth, to which the latter pouts in silence.</p><p>“Those are from Switzerland,” Byeongkwan adds.</p><p>Yuchan recalls the two months Byeongkwan spent in Europe—his most boring school break yet—and sighs in defeat. “You really like winter.”</p><p>“I like all seasons, and all countries with their wild weather,” he pulls Yuchan some inches closer, “but I do favour winter. It’s easy to favour winter.” Today was Yuchan’s birthday, but he tries not to infer past that.</p><p>Byeongkwan has an unusually calm voice. Not that he’s the opposite—he’s usually far too calm in almost any given situation—but Yuchan knows that that confidence is a knight’s shield. When Byeongkwan’s being genuinely friendly and not covering kindness with jokes, his composure fades into a foolish mess. Tonight, there’s something sad in his eyes that Yuchan longs to grasp.</p><p>It’s then that Byeongkwan unwraps his scarf and starts to add it to the equation.</p><p>“Hyung, what are you doing?” Yuchan worries as Byeongkwan’s signature scarf for the past year is pulled around him.</p><p>“Please keep this.”</p><p>“Why? Why?”</p><p>“For your birthday. I’ll need a better one.”</p><p>Yuchan wants to know, doesn’t stop asking as Byeongkwan settles it tightly around Yuchan’s hood, and doesn’t care if it suffocates him. He’s then pulled into a hug that steals whatever oxygen he’s supposed to have left, and feels Byeongkwan shiver.</p><p>A closeness that Yuchan usually finds comfort in now leaves him searching. “Hyung?”</p><p>He let’s go, finding Yuchan’s concerned eyes. “I’m moving to Canada.”</p><p>For a moment there’s no visible breath from either of them.</p><p>“How long?”</p><p>“Over a year. I’ll graduate there.”</p><p>Yuchan feels unnaturally cold for how much he’s dressed up, and his mind loops through three words that he’s not yet ready to say.</p><p>“My dad is leaving, and I want to go too. To keep moving forward.”</p><p>Yuchan knows he does. He always followed Byeongkwan no matter where it took them, and forward was the only direction Byeongkwan knew. He ignores the ache in his heart at their current closeness, at the distance to come, and the aimlessness after. Unknown minutes into the new year and he already feels lost, not prepared to think about what’s to come.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>When a graduated Byeongkwan finds his way back to his mother’s house in Jeju, it takes a few days for Yuchan to fit himself back into the other’s life, and neither can immediately adjust to the change, so they compromise on idle chatter over a new gaming console in Byeongkwan’s old room. It’s like a refresher of the past to ease the elephant into the room, and if there’s anything left unchanged, it’s competition for Mario Kart dominance.</p><p>A month in, they find themselves deep into the night with Yuchan’s leg slung around Byeongkwan for feigned leverage, the elder bracing himself in unaffected focus as both pairs of eyes catch sight of the finish line.</p><p>A series of curses fill the room as Yuchan scrambles off the bed in a graceless dismount, meeting Byeongkwan on the floor who smiles nonchalant and contrastingly still, save for the slight chuckles that mock Yuchan’s defeat.</p><p>“I swear, it’s because it’s all in English!”</p><p>“As if you need to be literate to win a race,” Byeongkwan laughs. “The game is from Canada, the characters are Italian, and the creators are Japanese. Mario Kart is universal!”</p><p>An instinct in Yuchan is ready to close the distance between Byeongkwan and his fists like when they were kids, but he’s not sure he will ever be able to narrow a space so greatly created—not to how it was before, and definitely not in the same way. He shoves Byeongkwan with hesitation but it’s more than he needs to release whatever frustration was just built up.</p><p>“You’ve changed,” Byeongkwan says, a little delicately in a way that’s new to what Yuchan has ever witnessed. The statement too, is sudden, and Yuchan naturally peers back to press an answer.</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>Byeongkwan laughs—the gesture, delicate again—before he speaks. “Less confident.”</p><p>Yuchan wraps his hands around Byeongkwan’s neck, shaking him with false threat. “Says you!”</p><p>Byeongkwan laughs so easily, Yuchan wonders where he developed such a fluency, especially with an uneased pressure around his throat. There’s a catch of self doubt that it wasn’t from himself.</p><p>“Chan!” he coughs out, laughter finally dying down as he frees himself from Yuchan’s grip. It’s a really nice look on him, and Yuchan feels the knight’s edges soften out as he loses sanity in the creases of Byeongkwan’s cheeky smile.</p><p>“Would a less confident person...” Byeongkwan’s eyes linger way too long on Yuchan’s own, drifting to his nose, then his mouth, as the words dissolve like mist into the air. Yuchan sees everything he taught himself to let go—everything he learned to admire peacefully as much as he worked so desperately to uncling to—right in front of him, different, free, and utterly perfect.</p><p>He thinks his past self would drown in shy laughter, or even seize the moment too eagerly, so he absorbs every second to surrender to a Byeongkwan he trusts more than he now knows. His hands brush through Byeongkwan’s hair as if to comfort him, not knowing if he’s kissed before and not knowing if Byeongkwan knows he hasn’t. It would be too much to think about if his friend’s lips weren’t already pressed against his. There are so much better things to get lost in.</p><p>“I miss you,” Byeongkwan whispers.</p><p>Yuchan thinks it’s his first time hearing the full weight of loss and frustration in his voice. He kisses Byeongkwan again and again, a certain strength in him filling the gaps where Byeongkwan suffers from its absence. He never had it to begin with, until he let himself feel such things. <em> It’s okay. </em></p><p>Byeongkwan melts into Yuchan, gets dearly close, presses him full against the side of the bed with arms that shift and shoulders that shake. It was always so much easier to let go and move on, and now he grips almost fearfully, as if holding onto the last traces of his identity.</p><p>Yuchan focuses tenderly on the boy in his lap, never fully stilling, never drifting away or letting Byeongkwan believe otherwise. The words barely leave his tongue, <em> You’re the same hyung to me, no matter where you go. </em></p><p>They cuddle awhile, the screen now painting the small corner of the room in faded hues, the carpet beneath them never too uncomfortable. It makes a cozy home away from home in the support of the other’s embrace.</p><p>“When you graduate,” Byeongkwan starts, “My mom…”</p><p>Yuchan hums, listening intently.</p><p>“My mom treats you like a second son.”</p><p>He smiles at the statement.</p><p>”Will you come? To live in Seoul with us?”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>It’s a day Yuchan has pondered for almost a year, and one made easier by keeping contact with Byeongkwan this time around. He leaves the island for the first time, rides a plane for the first time, and wonders if the rush could compare to what Byeongkwan has felt too many times in his life. Yuchan cannot be as sad, knows that he’s not leaving everything behind, and knows that he’s following himself more than anything. He lands in Seoul, the city where his dreams lie, unawakened, and moments await, ready to be seized. His heart weighs heavy and his hand lifted in the comforting grasp of another’s, filling him with warmth and excitement.</p><p>“It didn’t hurt as much,” Yuchan says. “To not see you.”</p><p>“So you don’t even miss me then.”</p><p>“You say that as if we haven’t called almost every day.”</p><p>Byeongkwan pulls away from Yuchan’s hand like it offends him. “My phone doesn’t kiss me.”</p><p>“Oh you wanna kiss now. On the train. Serious?” Yuchan’s personality is loud as it is but for Byeongkwan that would be a new development.</p><p>Byeongkwan leans against a suitcase, hiding his face from Yuchan’s peripheral, but there’s enough room in the air to imagine the smile on the other side.</p><p>They leave the train station and meet the city’s sun, cast perfectly overhead as to not shroud them in a skyline’s shadow. With hands too preoccupied by suitcases to connect, they stop by a park when Yuchan creates a sharp detour. Even under the speckled shadows of the trees, his face glows in wonder and curiosity.</p><p>“Are you tired?” he asks Byeongkwan, who is caught staring in a squint.</p><p>“Just hungry,” Byeongkwan excuses, finding refuge on a chair made of suitcase.</p><p>The younger seems to be running off pure sugar like usual, taking up space despite the busy attitude of the city around them. Byeongkwan sees the boy from his childhood and more, someone full of dreams and ready to chase all of them. His mind wanders off when Yuchan tells him he should draw, filling with visions of all the things he would try if he had the talent, and blanking again when he thinks that all it takes is inspiration.</p><p>He senses a shadow looming overhead through closed eyelids, filling his body with warmth as if its owner were the sun. A kiss lands on his forehead and he’s filled with all the sweetness that replaces Yuchan’s metabolism and entire body in general. He’s not really adjusted to affection in public, nor to the physical presence of his boyfriend for that matter, but it’s something he could get used to.</p><p>With resolution, he pulls Yuchan’s neck forward to kiss him softly and sweetly, lips separating and wanting a little more. The action bleeds into Yuchan’s ears, a tongue-biting smile cracking sheepishly. It’s brief and it’s public, but it’s their first kiss in ages. Byeongkwan thinks Yuchan tastes like new beginnings, and Yuchan thinks that summer is his favourite season of all.</p><p>They take off—for food, presumably—and neither wonder where they will go, just how they’ll enjoy it together.</p>
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